Sydney motorists misled by fuel pricing

Over half of Sydney’s motorists said they have been misled by the price shown on boards in Sydney’s service stations, a NRMA survey found.

The survey noted that over 90 per cent of those surveyed supported proposed legislation requiring service stations to advertise the full retail price – not the discounted price – of all types of fuel available for sale at the station.

The NRMA Motoring and Services Director, Dawn Fraser said two-thirds of motorists currently do not get enough information from the price
board to make a well-informed purchase decision and that they will welcome the new legislation.

But, given the wide-range of fuels available for sale and the current requirement to have the signs visible to drivers approaching the service station, the Service Station Association said the proposed
legislation is impractical.

A spokesperson for the Association, Colin Long said: “When you’re talking about changing the price boards, the Government is going far
too far. They’re talking about putting every single price up on the board, the petroleum price, sold at a particular service station. It is going to look like a laundry list.”

Mr Long said the problem is with current practice by major service station chains in advertising the discounted price for customers with a
discount docket and not the full price.

“The big confusion we see, and where we disagree with the NRMA, is that we don’t believe there should be a price up there for every single product,” he said. “We believe there should be a mandate that the price up there should be probably two or three products maximum
and the full retail price with no shopper discount [should be advertised] so everyone is treated equally.”

NSW Fair Trading is currently conducting a similar survey for motorists’ views on the issue and is open for formal submissions on the proposed legislation. The proposal will also include whether to display the octane rating of each type of petrol on the fuel pump, in
addition to a complete list of types of fuels on sale on their full retail price.

Both the NRMA and the Service Station Association are expected to make formal submissions in the proposed legislation. Submissions will
close on July 25.